Free The Marshal's Own Case by Magdalen Nabb Page B

didn’t know which distressed him most, having to deal with the transsexuals or having to deal with the Public Prosecutor whose attitude from the start had been pretty much the same as the Captain’s and who’d even gone so far as to say, ‘If people like that kill each other off they’re doing society a favour.’ He’d said it to the Marshal, of course, not to the newspapers. The last two days’ papers were on the Marshal’s desk. No pictures of the remains had been released but there was one that showed them, covered by a sheet, on the rubbish-strewn hillside with what seemed to be the Marshal’s own feet just visible at the top corner. And in the distance, Bruno. There was no keeping Bruno out of this. He hadn’t enough men to pick and choose. At least there was Ferrini, but he couldn’t push the Prosecutor off on him.
    ‘Mind if I light up?’
    ‘No, no . . .’
    ‘Are you going to ring him now? Or do you want to wait till we’re quite sure?’
    ‘I am quite sure,’ the Marshal said, ‘I’ve seen a photo of Lulu alive.’
    ‘You have? How come?’
    ‘Yesterday, at Carla’s house.’
    ‘Ah, Carla. Carla’s all right. Intelligent. Brutalized by so many years on the game but intelligent underneath.’
    ‘Yes. What Professor Forli said about anæmia . . .’
    ‘They’re probably all anæmic. Pale as corpses they are, under all the paint.’
    ‘These hormones they take . . . it seems they lower the blood pressure, too.’
    ‘I wouldn’t know, though like as not they’re what makes them so unbalanced and hypersensitive. They go up in smoke at the slightest provocation—well, you saw that for yourself.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But Carla’s one of the more reliable ones. Maybe you could get her to identify this head. Not a pleasant sight, mind you.’
    ‘No. I’ll ask her for that photo, anyway. The trouble is, there’s one of Lulu’s clients in it.’
    ‘Cut it. Know who he is?’
    ‘They call him Nanny. Apparently he has a wife and family so he wouldn’t have told them his real name.’
    ‘You never know. He won’t fancy giving evidence, though, none of Lulu’s clients will. It’s a non-starter even if he’s still in circulation.’
    ‘He is, I think. A regular client.’
    ‘Well, one thing’s certain, whoever bumped Lulu off was a client or a friend, not a random maniac. They ate together.’
    ‘From Carla’s account Lulu wasn’t the sort to have friends. “If she gets the chop it’ll be from one of her own kind.” ’
    ‘Carla said that?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well, let’s hope he’s right. We won’t have far to look, in that case. Shall we make a move?’
    Luigi Esposito, otherwise known as Lulu, lived, or used to live, in the Santa Croce area which the Marshal had visited only a few days before. But the flat they walked into now was a far cry from the bare and squalid bedsitter where the cheery saxophonist was camping. It was quite large and very luxurious. Ferrini gave an appreciative whistle as they opened the sitting-room door.
    ‘Made a good living, our Lulu. I wouldn’t mind a stereo like that myself.’
    They wandered from room to room without touching anything, waiting for the technicians to turn up. The Marshal automatically went first to the kitchen where the remains of a meal were congealed on dirty plates on a round white table in the middle of the room. If it was the meal there was nothing special to indicate it, no overturned chair, no stain of blood. The wine bottle was empty and two glasses still had dregs in them. He would have liked to look in the fridge but it was safer to wait for the experts.
    ‘Marshal? Where are you?’
    ‘In the kitchen.’
    ‘Come and look in here.’
    He joined Ferrini in the bedroom. The double bed was unmade, but if the room was in disorder it was the disorder of opulence rather than squalor. The crumpled sheets were silk and the open wardrobe was crammed with obviously expensive clothes, including one compartment bulging with